Training |
Pre-race
The day before the race my mom and I drove up to Napa to packet pickup. I had a really hard time with carb loading this time and I still don't quite know why. I never enjoy it that much and haven't mastered how many non-carb calories I can have to hit my carb goal while not being super hungry. This time I was really finding it challenging to get them in. I had planned to get a lot of rice at Whole Foods for dinner, but they were out. We ended up getting some pizza and I tried not to eat very much of the cheese. My mom and I got to briefly see my roommate Liz from college again! She had last minute decided to tackle the half. I was hoping to see her at the finish of the marathon, but we weren't sure if timing would work so I was glad I saw her before the race. After our visit, my mom and I went back to our hotel and got ready for the race. We played some games of course before calling it a night early. Ah the dull evening before a goal race! |
Race Day |
I hung on as long as I could, decided to try and enjoy the day as best I could, talking to some of the guys around me and waving at my mom when I saw her at mile 12. Just before mile 20 I got a sharp side stitch and had to stop and walk for awhile. This happened off and on for a few miles. I was able to jog in the last 4 miles, but it was without a doubt one of the worst races I've had. Once my data uploaded I saw my heart rate and was shocked. No wonder I couldn't hit paces! I went back and looked at what my heart rate had done at Houston before covid, and realized I was NOT over covid yet. It scared me a little! The silver lining was that I had no other plans to road run, nothing to wonder if I'd get better in time for. In March I will have a minor surgery and then this summer I'm going to do some trail running again and I'm very excited about it! Definitely disappointed about this race- I don't know that I'll ever be in this kind of shape again, and I also don't know that I'll ever fully recover from Covid and be back to 100% health. |